Key takeaways
- Achieve 32% women's workforce participation in India's tech sector by February 2025, up from 29% last year.
- Increase formal DE&I policies in companies to 75% by 2025, rising from 68% in 2024.
- Address bias in promotion and evaluation processes, as 25% of tech leaders report observed discrimination.
- Recognize rising representation of non-binary and transgender employees, increasing from 1% to 1.5% in 2025.
- Support neurodivergent employees, who often feel misjudged and excluded in the workplace.
India’s technology sector is witnessing a notable shift in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) with women's participation in the workforce growing to 32% in February 2025, compared to 29% last year. This increase is particularly significant in the IT/ITeS and Pharma & Healthcare sectors, which are leading the charge in driving gender diversity.
These findings are part of a study conducted by AIM Research in partnership with Chubb, which evaluated DE&I across critical areas such as gender diversity, leadership roles, workplace policies, accessibility, and corporate commitments.
The data also indicates that 75% of companies have a formal DE&I policy in 2025, an increase from 68% in 2024. Besides, it also shows that only 14% of startups allocate a budget for DE&I efforts amid 1 in 4 tech leaders seeing bias in promotion and evaluation processes.
“We talk about whether women need to lead like men, but I want to question: what does leading like men even mean? That itself is a stereotype we both men and women have to live up to for some reason,” said Aditi Olemann, head of marketing at Cashfree Payments, at Rising 2025, India’s largest summit on Women in Tech & AI, hosted by AIM.
The survey also found that the representation of non-binary and transgender employees increased from 1% in 2024 to 1.5% in 2025.
The report also serves as a reference point for organisations, and can be accessed here.
Meanwhile, Supriya Malik, founder of embrace, shared that neurodivergent employees often feel misjudged, excluded, or avoided. Citing a 2017 report, she said 93% of employees with disabilities suppress parts of their identity at work, and 37% felt actively avoided.
Commenting on the AI landscape, Saranya Gopinath, head of policy & government partnerships at Razorpay, pointed out that more diverse datasets lead to more equitable AI solutions is a shared understanding, though the path to realising it will be a long road ahead.
The future of AI cannot be shaped by a single perspective or a uniform group, and real innovation thrives on diversity.
In an earlier conversation with AIM, Ritwika Chowdhury, founder and CEO of Unscript.AI, brought attention to the historical contributions of women in computing and AI, such as Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, and Karen Spärck Jones.
She explained, “Women represent half of the end-users of AI technology, making their input in development vital. Diverse teams are better at identifying potential biases and blind spots in AI systems.”
This highlights the ongoing need for inclusive participation in AI, which will ultimately help develop more fair and ethical technology.
Bo Young Lee, president of AnitaB.org Advisory, mentioned that while women in India constitute the majority of STEM graduates, they do not represent the majority of the workforce. Lee added how studies show that large language models (LLMs) reflect the ideology of their creators.
Shivani Rai Gupta, chief data scientist at Jio, added her voice to the conversation, pointing out that women’s involvement in AI isn’t just about their technical expertise. It’s equally crucial for ensuring that AI solutions tackle ethical and social challenges.
Her perspective emphasises the need for social responsibility and ethical standards in AI development to avoid widening existing inequalities.
